Lanny Davis, the former Clinton spinmeister turned lobbyist for the scum of the Earth/apostle for bipartisanship, has returned to his roots, as it were. Davis has taken it upon himself to recapitulate his ‘90s-era role, when he would stand outside hearing rooms handing out response print-outs to reporters. Ruby Cramer reports that Davis has a plan to reprise his role with Benghazi (because Davis was so successful at allaying media suspicions about the Clintons). His new plan is … to stand outside the hearing room handing print-outs to reporters:
Davis will take his “Truth Squad” operation offline, setting up a table outside committee hearings, where volunteers will give reporters and lawmakers fact sheets, or booklets of facts — depending on what he decides to have printed.
If the reliance on printing sounds odd, it is in keeping with the old-school media strategy favored by many Clinton hands. They believe journalism was much better in the good old days before the internet, forgetting in their nostalgia just how bad the good old days were. They are prone to scoff at any form of new media (Clinton media-handler Phillip Reines writing to Buzzfeed: “I typically don’t respond to BuLLfeed inquiries”) and to dismiss even old media reporting they don’t like as somehow corrupted by new media (Clinton 2008 staffer Burns Strider: “I think it’s horse[hockey]. I think The Washington Post is acting like some kind of an Internet blog or something instead of doing real reporting”).
Interestingly, Davis is not necessarily planning on coming up with facts or even arguments of his own. Cramer reports that Davis “may rely on materials printed by Correct the Record,” another pro-Clinton group. So Davis’s contribution here appears to entail:
1. Navigating his browser to a website, or perhaps having his assistant go to the website for him;
2. Printing out some materials;
3. Driving to a hearing, or perhaps being driven by an assistant;
4. Physically handing the printed materials out to reporters.
You can’t even put a price on the value of these services.
